Monday, October 19, 2015

101915 Ponderize

First here's Daniel's letter to his president:

Hey President!
This week was good! We have been teaching more people and have stayed pretty busy. Plus I had my first exchange which is kind of funny since the zone leaders are in my apartment. But it was still fun. With Elder Swanson we made several good contacts that all enjoyed me attempting to speak Korean to them. I want talking to people to become more of language study time, and asking them to write down things they say that I don't understand. I think that will make it easier to talk to more people, because I can then view it as a learning opportunity rather than solely an attempt to get investigators, in which case I feel more pressure to speak Korean really well. Plus as I relax more people seem to enjoy me more and are thus more willing to talk. After conference, I choose to ponderize a scripture. I chose Hebrews 11:24-26, which in short says that Moses chose to sufferer and do God's will rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a little while. At the mission tour, the beautiful musical number "My Kindness" or whatever it is called, made me think about that verse again. I love several of the lines. "For a moment I have forsaken thee, but with everlasting kindness will I gather thee... How long can rolling water remain impure? ...The son of man hath descended below all things, are't thou greater than he?" I love the imagery of the rolling water here. It then reminded me of Joseph Smith, a rough stone rolling. From D&C 121-127 ish, Joseph goes from kind of complaining and saying that "where are't thou? and where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?" To saying "that deep water is what I am wont to swim in" and as did Paul that he "glories in afflictions." And looking at the dates that is about 2 years. So hopefully wrapping this all together, my goal this mission is to glory in affliction, to glory in the price of salvation. I want to be like rolling water, and never stop moving, no matter how hard the things I hit. For if I do, how long can I remain impure? I want to learn to find joy in working with the people of God rather than enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. This moving forward is faith. It is belief put into action. Anyway those are some of my thoughts that have impacted me this week.
Elder Sabey
Hello everybody!
This week has been good. Handy Choice got permission to attend the English Branch, which is nice. It just takes the awkwardness away of having to try to force him to go to the Korean Ward. I went on my first exchange on Friday. While I was with Elder Swanson, my companion and Elder Kim met with Handy Choice. Apparently several times he said he wished I were there. And then when we taught him again on Sunday, he said he missed me. It was kind of funny. But it still feels good to be appreciated. We had a mission tour this week. That means somebody from the Seventy comes and visits our mission. His name was Elder Whiting (I don't know how to spell that) who I guess gave one of the prayers in conference is you want to see who that is. He was good, but wasn't life changing for me. He told about how one apostle, and now two of them are apostles, came to the area head quarters for their yearly meeting. They have to make a presentation about their area. They thought it was good but part way through Elder Ballard was like "are you done?" They were like, no, but if you want us to be done, then yes. He then turned to them and asked, why are there so few baptisms? He said that they only send the best and the brightest to Korea and Japan (#nbd) so they can't understand why there are so few. They talked about the language, culture, etc, and he said those are all excuses. Basically they ultimately decided it was because we lack faith. So we talked about faith and that we need it. He said several times, do you have the faith to have a baptism once a month on your mission? But the real highlight was the special musical number. It was just awesome. We have a competitive piano player, some amazing singers (one who apparently had a song that went big on itunes for a little), and an amazing song. It just hit me. It fit perfectly into what I have been thinking about lately.
Because my trainer is the district leader, and the zone leaders are in our district, we are going on exchanges, starting tonight as well, so I will be on exchanges for most of my birthday. Plus we are going to the temple this Thursday, so today isn't p-day, after emailing it goes back to a normal day, and then we will have the rest of P-day after going to the temple on Thursday. We are going to get some delicious Korean chicken for my birthday, and I am making pancakes for breakfast, so yes Josh, I will find ways to enjoy the day. Thanks everybody for the birthday wishes. It should be a good birthday week.
I hope grandma is doing well. Send her my love. Those are always scary moments.
Another cool thing that happened was that on the exchange, Elder Grossgebauer found another lady who doesn't believe in God but for whatever reason is more curious now. She committed to come to church and did. That was the first time she has ever been at church in her life. She is Chinese but studied Korean growing up and has lived here for the past 10 years. So we had 2 investigators at church. That was solid.
Anyway another good week. Hopefully my whole letter to the mission president makes sense. It really hit me strong this week. So this next week I am ponderizing the how long can rolling water remain impure scripture.
Last week I went to Gangnam. So I have been to the place in the song. It is like the super rich area I guess. It was cool. We just spent a few hours there looking at the Nike store and having some food. We had some raw beef. Beef tartar, if that is what it is called. In a rice thing with veggies. So that is exciting. Also on Tuesday we had the twelve week follow up. That means we went to the mission home with the new missionaries and talked about things we what to do differently and stuff and it was a good meeting. Between that and the mission tour it basically took almost two days away from missionary work this week. But still good, worth while things.
So I love you all.
Hurrah for Israel!
Elder Sabey



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